2110-6-5-8

Edgerston, Jedburgh.

9. 7. 33

Dear Susie, I've been meaning to write to you for several months past. I read all your "Lady Louisa" & enjoyed it. I am very fond of that old patrician. A good deal of it I had read already in Home's edition; but you told me a lot I didn't know.

I am very pleased by the way your gracious graces comported yourselves at Holyrood. I have heard a good deal about your doings there, from various different sources, & everyone seems to agree that Their Majesties have never, in years, been so well represented. As I read the newspaper accounts, even my faultfinding mind was absolutely baffled. I'm glad - very glad - that you & John did it.

It was kind of you to ask little Katie. She did enjoy herself as one

of the Queen's Marys, & was hard to hold when she got back.

And all this about Alice!!! Gosh!! I'm glad, & I wish them well. Katie had told me at once on her return - before the news came - that he seemed a particularly nice young man. And so I have no doubt he is; though I have no great affection for his sire.

You have no doubt put off the trappings of Royalty; but I hear you have insisted on John's engaging a purse bearer as a permanent institution.

I've been ill, & mainly bedrid, & quite useless for the past two months. This time its my heart turned traitor & I gather there isn't any chance of its ever being any better.

A pair of wings;

A glassy sea;

Thats the kind of life for me.

[in margin:] But I can't give 'Largesse' to the cherubs, because my 'golden crowns' have all gone in paying human taxes.

Love to you all.

Yours F.S.O.